Photobook "Trance State" features photographer Jungang Zhang's works, which he took randomly during long journeys or camping. To put it another way, the subjects frozen in these photographs witnessed the short pauses in his world as he lived between one shutter press and the other. In some cryptic moments, he would decide to push the shutter again to resume his life.
In Jungang Zhang's photographs, those mud, traces of beasties, plants, and curious surfaces have formed into a sort of mystery and fragility, purposelessly and unconsciously. Without definite intention and logic, Jungang Zhang is more likely to press the shutter under some guidance, capturing the faint light splashed at delicate moments when the photographed subjects slide into the frame. For Jungang Zhang, photography is unresolved. It is the raving in his writing and a frenzied extreme sport. In his own words—"Photography is a pure trance."
FIRST EDITION 450 Copies
SIZE: 214mm x 265mm
PAGES: 188 Pages
PRINT: CMYK Four Color Printing
PAPER: Art Paper
BINDING: Soft Cover
Published by Same Paper
Book design by Han Gao
Translated by Yunchang Yang
Jungang Zhang (b.1980), photographer based in China. Jungang, usually along with his wife, carries a camera anywhere they go to capture fleeting moments in life and nature that are otherwise lost to memories. Acute observations are usually just useless for him. Edited with basic editing techniques, Jungang’s work is spontaneous, earnest and highly personal that blurs the boundaries between the intentional and the accidental. To him, ”there are very rare moments when I see things in their simplicity and beauty, and that is photography."
Notable exhibitions include Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China (2005), 6th Annual San Francisco Photographic Art Exposition, San Francisco, USA (2006), Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, China (2008), 静默世界的表情, Shanghai, China (2021). Jungang Zhang and his wife Jie Li were awarded as Photographer of the Year in Lianzhou Foto Festival in 2010.
